If Republicans win the House, all but a few of of the two dozen GOP chairmen will be first-timers with the gavel, a strong sign that a new generation of Republican leadership has dawned, ushering in a slate of mostly conservative younger chairmen who will control debate on everything from tax cuts to a farm bill to business regulation.
It?ll be a stark contrast to the 2006 Democratic takeover, when Dave Obey of Wisconsin, George Miller of California and Michigan?s John Dingell and John Conyers reclaimed gavels they lost in the Republican rout of 1994.
In broad terms, the Republican chairmen will be policy conservatives but not bomb-throwing ideologues. Many of them are legislators who know how to cut a deal. And above all, the new chairmen will be loyalists to Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner of Ohio. In a bid to reform Congress, Boehner has promised to devolve power back to these chairmen to give them more freedom and more legislative legroom, a contrast to the centralized bill-writing Republicans complained of under Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Major new players in a new Republican Congress include 57-year-old Dave Camp of Michigan atop the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Budget wonk Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, a 40-year-old who has become a hero to fiscal conservatives, will most likely rule over the Budget Committee. Oversight and Government Reform will have the fiery Darrell Issa of California dashing off subpoenas to the Obama administration.
Old bulls move aside in new GOP - POLITICO.com Print View
Fresh, young, and brimming with new ideas. I like the sound of that! (Ryan on the Budget Committee? Great!)
